1. Field
The present invention relates in general to computer networks, including telecommunications networks. More particularly, the present invention relates to network and device rendering of network-transcoded, sign-language-interpreted content that originated as non-sign-language content. This invention is particularly useful for making available to and displaying on a destination node, such as a wireless phone, interpreted sign-language communications to allow people, such as hearing-impaired people, to receive communications that originate in a form other than sign-language format.
2. Related Art
Over time, various methods have been developed in attempt to fluently and conveniently communicate with hearing-impaired individuals. Such methods of communication may include (i) Cued Speech; (ii) Seeing Essential English; (iii) Signed Exact English; (iv) Linguistics of Visual English; (v) Signed English; (vi) Pidgin Sign English; (vii) Conceptually Accurate Signed English; (viii) Manually Coded English; (ix) the Rochester Method or “Finger-Spelling;” (x) American Sign Language; and (xi) various others. Many of these methods are not languages in themselves, but signing systems adapted to the native spoken language (in many cases, English) of the area in which the hearing impaired person resides.
While there is a signing form called Gestuno, which not a sign language but rather vocabulary of agreed upon “signs” to be used at international meetings, presently, there is no “universal sign language” or widely accepted international sign language. And while some people refer to lingua franca, which is a developing creole sign language in Europe, as an International Sign Language, this new European creole is not a true natural language from the linguistic perspective.
Unlike the signing systems adapted to spoken languages, American Sign Language (ASL) is a language on its own, which uses no voice and which has its own grammatical and linguistic structure. ASL is a complex visual-spatial language that is used by the deaf community in the United States and English-speaking parts of Canada. ASL is the native language of many deaf people, as well as some hearing children born into deaf families. ASL shares no grammatical similarities to English and is not a broken, mimed, or gestural form of English. In terms of syntax, for example, ASL has a topic-comment syntax, while English uses Subject-Object-Verb syntax. To facilitate the topic-comment syntax, ASL uses facial expression such as eyebrow motion and lip-mouth movements. The use of facial expression is significant because it forms a crucial part of the grammatical system. In addition, ASL makes use of the space surrounding the signer to describe places and people that are not present.
Many of the methods for sign language communication have been developed in face-to-face meetings between the people conversing. Over time, mass communication methods and devices have been implemented in an attempt to allow hearing-impaired people and others communicate without being in face to face contact. For instance, the hardware and software that supports “closed captioning” of television programs is now available on almost every late model television. When a television carrier broadcasts closed-captioned television programs, the television can display trailing or scrolling text messages containing spoken content and symbols indicative of the surrounding non-spoken content (e.g., displaying a musical note symbol indicating a song is playing). In most cases, the closed captioning occurs in synchrony with the ongoing program scenes.
In another attempt to communicate with the hearing impaired without being in face-to-face contact, many telecommunications carriers have implemented Teletype (TTY) service and devices, which are also known as TDDs (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf). A typical TDD device includes a keyboard having about 20 to 30 character keys, a display screen, and a modem. In a TDD system, two callers (hearing or hearing impaired) having TDD devices may communicate with each other by one caller simply “dialing” the other caller. Instead of an audible ring that normally occurs on a standard telephone to indicate an incoming call, the TDD device flashes a light or vibrates a wristband.
After establishing a connection, the users of the two TDD devices simply type characters on their respective keyboards to communicate with each other. These typed characters are converted into electrical signals that can travel over the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) lines. When the signals reach the destination TDD, they are converted back into characters, which may be displayed on the display screen or alternatively may be printed out on paper.
With the now expansive use of computers, accessibility software and the Internet, many software programs provide sign-language interpretation dictionaries. These dictionaries, whether offline or online at various websites, function somewhat like an English-to-foreign language dictionary, where a user can look up an English word, phrase, and/or statement, and software provides the corresponding sign-language interpreted equivalent. Such available dictionaries include Finger-Spelling Dictionaries, Signed English Dictionaries (and the many variations thereof), ASL Dictionaries, British Signed Language Dictionaries, and many others. These dictionaries can provide animated images, such as concatenated video clips or other video, of the sign-language interpreted content.
These dictionaries are useful for teaching users how to communicate with hearing-impaired people using the signing languages or systems. The dictionaries, however, do not allow a user of a destination device, such as a computer, a cellular telephone and/or a Personal Digital Assistant, to receive from a user of a similar-type source device interpreted sign-language communications that originate in a form other than sign language.